The queue was long and winding one. I was worrying whether I would ever get a ticket. Funny, how little things make you fret. Just when I had resigned myself to a long wait, the bus company's employees had a change of heart. They opened one more window for issuing tickets. alf the queue, the more alert half, defected. This brightened my chances of getting a ticket. I was happy. it takes as little to make you happy as it takes to make you fret.
I now started to pay attention to people in my queue. There was this bearded chap with flowing locks and terrylene Kurta-Pyjama of saffron colour. Wondered if his faith in God and interest in sex were as little or as much as mine. All the same, some in the queue seemed to venerate him.
Then, there was a family who like some celebrated political families had a representative in each camp. Father in my queue and mother in the other. Son was on the look out for the opening of the third window of the 'Trinetra' booking office of the bus company.In the meanwhile, he was shuttling between parents, giving the latest odds on the mother's making it to the father and vice versa.
Soon, I got on to the ticket window and then on the bus. The driver and the conductor arrived and the bus started. Hardly had it moved a few yards when it was stopped by a chivalrous passenger. A couple of ladies ran and caught hold of the bus. The younger one helped the bulk of the older one into the bus and then herself climbed in. The chivalry of the bus-stopping chivalrous passenger did not extend beyond stopping of the bus. He did not offer his seat. The ladies therefore stood. At the next stop, a seat near mine fell vacant and mama mia spread herself onto it.
I started observing the younger female who was standing close by. Large dark glasses covered her eyes but a sidelong glance revealed her foolishness. Such beautiful eyes ! Why did she need to hide them ? As if sensing my thought, she removed the darkies and put them in her compact. A stunning profile. A shapely burgeoning bosom that was almost an affront to my masculinity. My hands itched in revenge.
Instinct told her of my interest in her. She turned herself and all her charms towards me. Perhaps took me to be a fall guy. She gave me a concentrated look of male ego boosting admiration which would have encouraged a lessr male to scale the peaks of Himalayas just for her sake. However, all that she wanted was for me to offer her my seat. I returned her compliment by giving her my best feminine vanity boosting look, keeping the eyes rivetted at the proper places, making her feel like a Helen of Troy. No seat however. I was just not in a chivalrous mood, you see. She did not 'Touche'. She simply moved ahead, obviously in search of a more likely quarry. Wise girl ! I was sorry for her though and for the cessation of an interesting battle of the sexes that could have continued for some more time, to mutual benefit.
Before boredom could take hold of me, at the next stop, a coy little woman entered. She was shrinking her body from non-existing males around her. By this time, the passenger next to me had alighted and she compressed herself into a half seat out of the full seat next to mine. She had very delicate features and was dressed in even more delicate clothes. One feels afraid even to breathe hard in such company for fear of blowing the flmsy thing off.
For a while, I was carried away into shrinking in my seat. Soon however, my instincts took over. Such women always bring out the hunter in a male just as a veiled woman brings out a Peeping Tom in a man. I was remimded of an incident in my childhood.
It was a colonial type, split level bunglow that we lived in. My mother was very fond of good crockery. My father, with that air of an England-returned Brown Sahib, had bought a set of champagne glasses to please her. There seemed to be no other reason for that purchase, since the only use that we made of them was for eating ice cream, when grandma was away. Champagne, of course, was unthinkable in an orthodox household. These glasses were extremely delicate with artistic etching on them. Touching them was strictly forbidden. They used to be stored on the topmost shelf of the crockery case adorning our dining room.
One sunday afternoon, the rest of the family was enjoying a siesta and the servants had retired to their quarters. I was at a loose end. While passing through the dining room, my eyes fell on those champagne glasses. All my pent up desire sprang up to take full advantage of the opportunity. I leaned a dining chair agaist the crockery case, put a stool on it, climbed up and took one champagne glass. With great fury, I crushed it. Blood came out of my hand but I had a great sensual pleasure.
A similar urge arose in me in the bus. I do not know if the champagne glass relished what I did to it but I was sure, however, that this dainty dish, would, after an initial cry of anguish, hugely enjoy a similar crushing experience. And savour the memory ever after. Alas ! at forty and above, one gets content with only mental hunting. One is apt therefore, to leave shrinking females, however tantalizing they may be, to shrink in their corners instead of giving them what they are sub-consciously asking for !
The passengers standing in the aisle had alighted by this time. Now I got a clear view of a couple of manes belonging to foreigners. I was a little curious to know why they were riding this Janta bus. These two females however did not wear the standard hippy undress. They were sitting most unobtrusively and passively in a way similar to the way most of our peasants and Adiwasis do when travelling by any modern conveyance.
About one stop from the terminus, these people started getting down. I was shocked to see that one of them, whom I had taken for a female, was flat chested with a delicate beardless face from which an occasional hair peeped out. I strained my eyes and peered closely at 'her'. The see through shirt told the story. It was a boy or at least not a girl. If 'it' was a boy, it had a very high f.q. (feminine quotient). If a girl, it had a very high m.q. (masculinity quotient).
While I was wondering about them and mulling over various theories on what had brought them together, the conductor rudely shook me. The terminus had arrived and the bus was empty except for me. I marshalled my tired limbs garbed by an invigorated mind to my destination.
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